Short map of the protocol, because the jargon is the first barrier and nobody explains it in order.

Sleep diary, week 0. Before anything changes, you track. Rough morning estimates — when you went to bed, roughly when you fell asleep, how long you were up, when you got up. Two weeks of this gives you your actual sleep time, which is almost always different from what you assumed.

Sleep window, week 1. You set time in bed to match the sleep you're actually getting, not the sleep you want. If you're sleeping 5 hours across 8 in bed, the window becomes about 5.5. Wake time gets fixed first, bedtime moves later to fit.

Stimulus control, ongoing. Bed is for sleep. Awake and frustrated, you get up. This is what rebuilds the association your insomnia broke.

Titration, weeks 2 onward. Weekly sleep efficiency goes up, the window expands 15 minutes at a time. Efficiency drops, you hold or trim.

Cognitive work, throughout. The catastrophizing at 2am, the arithmetic about how many hours are left, the belief that tomorrow is ruined. This part gets skipped constantly and it's half the treatment.

That's the whole shape. It usually takes 4 to 8 weeks, and it gets worse before better.

Not medical advice — sleep restriction isn't safe for everyone to self-administer, more on that in a separate post.

Can it?

I have felt, like a sense of in a situation that I am abnormal. I am not abnormal, but I feel I am sometimes, just invisibly to others.

I have felt like that since I was a child.

Context:

In toddlerhood, I was playful, active and healthy.

Examples: I stomped going up and down the stairs, made funny faces, danced to songs etc. I was quite good academically and got As in Kindergarten.

In childhood, I was active and jumpy.

Examples: Talked nonsense, played with my little sister pretend a lot. Had quite a hard grip and force when I played with my sister and then she would cry and our parents would scold me that I am older, and my force is stronger in reality than my perception of it. I often felt angry and sad, and kind of started to isolate from my sister that I harm everyone in my way so I should just stay away. But, I never really was able to isolate myself, I had very low self-control. I used to sit right into people's personal spaces, touched their skin (face, arms, hands), annoyed them. My grades were good (before grade 3).

In early teenage, I was very cringe.

Examples: I used to just blurt out things like that whether or not they were appropriate for the social setting. I got irritated from normal things. Didn't eat vegetables, ate a lot of snacks. My grades were barely making it to Cs and Ds (grades 3.5 - 8)

Around age 15, I was still quite cringe and had shame for not being like my cousins.

Examples: One time, I had henna on my hands (we were making tattoos) and I washed them, but it still had some left and I placed my hands onto the sleeves of my cousin's favorite shirt and it got ruined. I felt pretty bad that I did that. Similarly, I had a lot of these impulsive things, and I just stopped.

I also started having voice problems, my posture was leaned forward, I had slow movements. I fidget a lot. I have BFRBs. I avoid demands a lot.

My therapist told me after a sensory profile:

I also have sensory sensitivity, low registration, low sensory seeking and slight high sensory avoidance.

With voice problems, I still have them. I don't know how to speak clear. I mumble or intertwine words that leave my mouth and the other person doesn't hear it clearly. I have to repeat so my times. I don't know if I am speaking loudly or low. I don't know if my speed is normal or slow. I talk very slow and don't open my mouth wide enough that words get lost inside my mouth before going out.

My posture is still leaned forward and I do not know how to walk normally. If I straighten my spine, I look unnatural like forcing myself to be straight.

My walking speed is slow, my movements are slow.

I fidget a lot since my tween age. Bouncing/shaking my legs, rocking my torso, swaying, wiggling my toes.

I peel my skin off my fingers and lips.

Onto the Title:

I feel abnormal.

An example I will give that happened just now when I felt like that:

I am at my aunt's house. There are my cousins here too. So, it was evening and we hadn't eaten in a while, so my aunt told my cousin if she could make her black tea. My uncle also told her how much he wants and my aunt said that I also like black tea so, my cousin should make mine as well. My cousin asked her mother (my aunt) how much I would want. My aunt said to my cousin to ask me directly because she doesn't know. (I was around them the whole time) Then my cousin asked me how strong I would like it, and I was going to answer her, but I think I was slow to respond and I kept saying, like. Then my cousin said said to my aunt that I am just saying, like, like, like. I got embarrassed, but I managed to say, half, however, I wanted a full mug. And then I didn't say anything. That time I felt like I am not normal.

I don't know why my response time is so slow. I am just realizing this now that when someone asks me a question, I am thinking of an answer instead of answering. And just when I am about to answer, they repeat the question and it makes me feel self-conscious. And it's happened so many times.

Ok everyone always talks about Feeling Good or Mind over Mood, and don’t get me wrong, those are great CBT Books. They aren’t best selling without reason.

But I’m genuinely just curious what CBT Self help books/workbooks you guys have read that you deemed helpful to you but also underrated, because CBT has sorta become a hobby of mine lol

For me it’s "Teach yourself Cognitive Behavioural Therapy" by Christine Wildling. I really like how the CBT techniques are explained in a layman-friendly way here and the step by step structure of the book.

Multiple therapists I've interacted with talk about mind reading. This is an extraordinarily dangerous concept because it forces you to doubt about your perception. The very expression "mind reading" is very evocative and is intended to make you look crazy.

If I say something annoying, I can look at the other person's facial expression and conclude that they are irritated. How the uckf is that mind reading? Or if someone is visibly shocked, surprised, scared, how the uckf is that mind reading? It's called not having your head stuck right up your *ss. Imagine someone makes a facial expression because there is an offensive smell, how the uckf is that mind reading?

I was seeing a therapist and doing CBT with her. One of the things she advised me to do was keep a journal. Just get my raw, unprocessed thoughts out on paper, then come back to them later when I was in a different state of mind and challenge them. Do these thoughts actually reflect reality? Is this thing really as bad as it felt in the moment? It was something that was working for me.

Quite often I'd come back to something that had been eating away at me and realise how distorted or silly it looked once I'd cooled down. I started carrying a little pocket notebook everywhere. If something was bothering me, I'd jot it down, get it out of my head, and move on with my day.

The important thing is that these thoughts were raw. They weren't considered opinions or things I'd necessarily stand by. They were deliberately unfiltered because filtering them would defeat the purpose. Nobody was supposed to read them except me.

Two days ago, I woke up and discovered that my partner had taken the journal from my bedside table and read it.

She didn't like what she found, and she hasn't spoken to me since.

There were an entry or two about her that weren't flattering. Mostly petty relationship stuff, like she'd annoyed me by being messy or whatever. One was written immediately after an argument where she'd said some things that really hurt me. I was angry and venting, basically writing something like "who needs her anyway?" That kinda thing.

That's what the journal was for. It gave those thoughts somewhere to go without me saying them to her, acting on them, or letting them stew in my head. Later I could come back, look at them rationally, challenge them and move on.

I have tried explaining this, but it's fallen on deaf ears. I'm conflicted because I am sad that I hurt her feelings, but I am angry that my private thoughts have been violated. There was honestly very little in that journal that would have been about her, so she would have had to read a whole lot of stuff that was deeply personal to find it.

I'm sorry she's upset, but I can't help feeling ambivalent about the whole thing. I do feel like I am the injured party here.

I started CBT because I wanted to work on myself and be better for my family, and there's a sick irony in feeling like something I started for that reason might now contribute to fucking up my situation.

Another part of this that's really bothering me is that I feel like I've lost the journal.

It worked because I believed I was the only audience. I could be unreasonable, angry, petty, frightened, insecure or completely fucking ridiculous on those pages because nobody else was ever supposed to see the first draft of my thoughts.

I don't know how I get that back now.

Even if nobody ever reads another journal of mine, I think some part of me will always be writing with a potential second reader in mind. I'll censor myself. I'll soften things. I'll wonder how a sentence would look if somebody found it. And once I'm doing that, I'm not sure I'm performing the same exercise anymore.

I'm not really sure what I want from posting this. Thanks for reading it anyway.

David Burns says something like "hope is the most powerful antidepressant." Inspired by that, I'd love to hear positive experiences from those of you who've worked on anxiety about eating in public, especially with CBT or ACT. Your stories would really help me keep my hope alive and grow it.

Hi, title says it, I'm looking for some good, well-documented podcasts to learn my way through this stuff. Any recommendations ?

A post to therapists and clients;

I had been going to a counselor before and she was also using the CBT approach.

All it did was give me intense positive limerence to her and anxiety surges because it was getting out of my control. I was just going there to just fulfill the therapy schedules, I literally forgot why am I even going there instead of that?

Now, I am going to another therapist who is also doing CBT and recently she told me she will use a trauma-infromed approach as well with CBT to treat me.

It is also not really helping, I mean, I am alone and I just figure things out by myself because I have long delays, sometimes a month or five-six weeks in between sessions. I also do not talk there, so I write a note when I am regulated beforehand and just hand my phone to her to read.

So.., is this how it's supposed to go, or should I just quit? I have been meaning to quit for quite some time, but I haven't quit yet because I think I should keep on waiting. But, I do not know, it's not actively helping.

Yes, that therapist gives me homework, but I am quite self-aware and the things she's given me for homework, I have already done them before. Like; knowing what ways help me regulate/reset myself etc.

my therapist gives me a worksheet on identifying automatic thoughts and it looks so straightforward in the session. then I get home and the second I actually try to catch one I cant. its like the thought is already gone by the time I notice I was having it and I just end up writing something made up to have something on the page. does this happen to anyone else or am I doing it wrong

My therapist wants me to do exposure therapy and sent me this worksheet to do, she did not state what situation or whether it has to be the same situation. I shouldn’t be in this position, she’s my therapist yet she isn’t explaining things correctly it’s ridiculous. If anyone else has been given this can someone help plz.